These are among the foremost rights which each of us, as human beings, have. You have the right to live without threat of violence. You have the right to live without unreasonable constraints on the choices you make for yourself, other than the equal right of others to liberty. And you have the right to pursue those things which you believe will bring you happiness, again so long as that does not violate another’s equal right to pursue their desires.

These are not “Constitutional rights”, they are innate rights to which every person is entitled. Government does not grant rights: it can only either recognize them, or violate them.

I promise you that as your Representative, I will do everything in my power to see that the state of Utah does more recognizing and less violating.

Fired UTA boss Jerry Benson is about to get a severance package of over $200,000 - nearly four times as much as the average Iron County family makes in a year. Why? Well, because the people who hired him wrote that severance into his contract if they were to ever fire him, and then promptly forgot it was there until they'd fired him and he asked for his money.

And now, the Attorney General's office is going to spend even more of our tax dollars in an attempt to weasel out of the absurd contract that the state signed with Benson.

The Utah Transit Authority is soon to be rebranded as the Transit District of Utah, in the absurd belief that changing logos on the trains is somehow going to erase a decades-long history of financial mismanagement. Estimated cost of that rebranding? Fifty million dollars. And who's taking Benson's place? The overpaid Benson was fired so that he can be replaced - by an overpaid three-person board.

UTA or TDU, whatever you want to call it, is $2 billion in debt with not only no plan to get out of debt, but in fact plans to continue to spend nearly $100 million more this year than it expects to take in. All of us here in Iron County are expected to subsidize this 'service', even though we do not reap any of the benefits. I'm tired of paying for things I don't receive, and even more of paying for incompetence, and you should be too.

It's time for the counties where Utah Transit operates to take over the responsibility for its functions, and get it entirely out of the hands of the state. Take the assets, take the debt, and we wash our hands of it. It's time for the pickpockets of the Wasatch to get their hands out of Iron County's pockets. ... See more

The Utah Attorney General's office is reviewing the more than $200,000 former UTA boss Jerry Benson is getting after being fired last month, as well as other transit agency employee contracts that offer similar provisions.

In response to a question I asked on the Iron County Elections FB page, one of our candidates for sheriff discussed the desire to keep the pipeline of prisoners from the state to the Iron County jail flowing. (State prisoners are housed in county jails, with the state paying more than the actual cost of hosing the inmates, thus subsidizing the cost of maintaining a local jail.)

We all want to keep those who are truly threatening to us off the streets. But to make sure we keep our jails filled, for reasons of profit....that's just a hugely dangerous precedent. And while some agencies may profit from it, let's not forget - you and I are the ones who truly pay every penny of the cost. ... See more

Sharing again because the problem is as expensive and easily remedied as it was a year ago. Ending the drug war will free up between 20-31% of these inmates. For the rest, we can look at other victim-less crimes as well as clearing out those in for poorly advised mandatory minimums (a la Bill Clinton).

I'm asking everyone here to commit to at least $5 per month to support our candidates in 2018.

You've probably seen the full list of candidates by now; if you haven't, they're on the home page of the LibertarianUtah website. Maybe there's a candidate where you live running for Utah House or Senate - we cover about a quarter of Utah that way. If you're in Congressional District 2, Jeff Whipple is running there. And if you don't happen to live where any other LP candidate is running, there's Craig Bowden who is our candidate for US Senate for all of Utah.

You can support any of them, or you can donate to the state party where we're coordinating efforts so we put the money where it can have the greatest impact. You don't have to donate to the candidate where you live, pick anyone. You might not donate to the same candidate every time. That's all perfectly okay.

Over 2800 people have liked this page, with another 2700+ followers. Now, some of them are not Utah residents, and will (I trust) be donating to candidates in their states. But imagine if over 5,000 people could put $5 per month in for the next six months. Do you have any idea of how much impact this party could have if we had $150,000 to spend in this campaign? If only a quarter of those people would commit to $5 per month we'd still have the best funded UTLP campaigns in many years.

If you can do $10 or more per month, that would be great. The $17.76 or $19.71 monthly pledge is a fine way to do that. But if you want the cause of liberty in Utah advanced, please commit to at least $5 each month - less than what you spend on lunch many days - and help this be a year where we plot a new course for Utah's future.